have you heard the rumors?

it's banned books week!

in celebration, i give you my top five favorite banned books:

#5:  harper lee's to kill a mockingbird

reason: i read this for the first time in high school--tenth grade, i think; i went to one of those progressive schools that didn't take to banning books.  i remember being floored by the descriptions in the book:

"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when i first knew it.  In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square.  Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square.  Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning.  Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nighfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum."

they made me see.  they moved me.  they have withstood the tests of time.

i read TKAM every summer.  not because i have to but because i choose to.  ms. lee had some very profound and important things to say in the novel, and she said them very well.  i hear them.